A brief afternoon rally fades, leaving U.S. indexes mixed

A sign marks Wall Street near the New York Stock Exchange. (Mark Lennihan / Associated Press)

Associated Press

The stock market showed little life on Wednesday as it closed yet another trading day barely changed from the day before.

Major indexes flitted between tiny gains and losses in the morning, rallied a bit after the Federal Reserve released minutes from its last meeting, then petered out toward the close. The Standard and Poor's 500 ended lower, but barely — down just 0.09 percent.

It was the fourth day in a row that the index moved less than one-half of one percentage point.

“There's no real reason to rally and no real reason to decline,” said Matthew Tuttle, CEO of money manager Tuttle Tactical Management. “It's been really boring.”

The S&P 500 closed down 1.98 points to 2,125.85. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 26.99 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,285.40. The Nasdaq composite rose 1.71 points, less than 0.1 percent, to 5,071.74.

Stocks fell from the opening of trading as investors weighed the latest batch of earnings reports for the first quarter. Etsy plunged 18 percent after its first earnings report as a publicly traded company showed a hefty quarterly loss. Stock in the e-commerce retailer of crafts dropped $3.80 to $17.20.

With most companies out with their results, earnings per share for S&P 500 stocks are expected to have risen 3 percent from a year ago, according to S&P Capital IQ, a data provider. That is better than the drop that financial analysts had been predicted in early March, but still low by recent standards.

Oct. 1 -- U.S. markets suffered their worst quarter since 2011 in the third quarter with all three indexes falling by at least seven percent. Bloomberg's Julie Hyman recaps the market carnage on "Bloomberg Surveillance."

Oct. 1 -- U.S. markets suffered their worst quarter since 2011 in the third quarter with all three indexes falling by at least seven percent. Bloomberg's Julie Hyman recaps the market carnage on "Bloomberg Surveillance."

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Sept. 30 -- The Senate passed a U.S. government spending plan hours before a shutdown deadline, sending the bill to the House where Speaker John Boehner promised a vote over objections from fellow Republicans who wanted to use it to defund Planned Parenth

Sept. 30 -- The Senate passed a U.S. government spending plan hours before a shutdown deadline, sending the bill to the House where Speaker John Boehner promised a vote over objections from fellow Republicans who wanted to use it to defund Planned Parenth

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Target announced it will match its online prices to the prices of nearly two dozen online competitors beginning Thursday. Sept. 30, 2015 (CBS Minnesota)

Target announced it will match its online prices to the prices of nearly two dozen online competitors beginning Thursday. Sept. 30, 2015 (CBS Minnesota)

More worrisome for markets, analysts have been slashing their forecasts for future quarters, too. At the beginning of 2015, they were expecting a 7 percent jump in S&P 500 earnings for the full year. Now they expect an increase of less than 1 percent.

The tiny move down for the Dow on Wednesday came after four straight gains.

Ernie Cecilia, chief investment officer of Bryn Mawr Trust, said investors have feared missing out on a six-year bull market that never seems to falter.

“Even in the brief sell-offs, it seems investors and money managers are buying on weakness,” he said.

The minutes of the Fed's meeting from April showed that policymakers at the central bank generally thought June was too early to raise rates. Stocks have been propelled higher in part by easy money policies at central banks. A rate increase would be the first since the global financial crisis.

The price of oil rose for the first time in a week after the Energy Department reported a surprisingly large drop in supplies of both crude oil and fuels. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 99 cents to close at $58.98 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oil used by many U.S. refineries, rose $1.01 to close at $65.03 in London.

In other futures trading on the NYMEX:

— Wholesale gasoline rose 4.6 cents to close at $2.041 a gallon.

— Heating oil rose 1.7 cents to close at $1.946 a gallon.

— Natural gas fell 3.3 cents to close at $2.915 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In currency markets, the dollar strengthened to 121.32 yen from 120.67 yen. The euro declined to $1.1095 from $1.1147.

The price of U.S. government bonds rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.26 percent from 2.30 percent late Tuesday.

Precious and industrial metals prices closed little changed. Gold rose $2 to $1,208.70 an ounce, silver rose four cents to $17.11 an ounce, and copper edged down less than a penny to $2.83 a pound.